Ruddy Hairstreak? at Progreso Lakes, 2/22/22

After a lot of cold weather, things have warmed up for a few days and butterflies are out.  Our elbow bush is blooming up a storm and attracting a few hairstreaks so I paid extra attention to it today and got rewarded with a tiny little hairstreak that I instantly recognized as new for the yard.  It was the size of Ruddy Hairstreaks I have seen in the past though I was getting no orange color above.  After getting a bunch of photos I went into the house to look at them and come up with an ID.  It looked a lot like Ruddy Hairstreak though I didn't like how the post median band was so far from the thecla spot.  It looked much like Mathew's Hairstreak in Glassberg's book but that one has some pale cell end bars.  I posted the photos on Facebook and most agreed it looked like a Ruddy Hairstreak.  Muted Hairstreak is pretty much identical but seems to be very rare in the RGV.  Males can be separated by the color of the upper wings but we don't know how to ID females.

So in conclusion I'm calling it a Ruddy Hairstreak untill someone can prove different.  And either way it's yard butterfly #143.

Here's one of several Gray Hairstreaks form the same elbow bush.

And there were a couple of Dusky-blue Groundstreaks.

New for the year was this Turk's-cap White-Skipper.

Lots of copulating today.  Here's Gulf Fritillaries and Whirlabouts.

This winter form South Texas Satyr is pretty much spotless.

We had 31 species today but I'm to tired to make a list now.  More warm weather tomorrow.

Violet-banded Skipper at Progreso Lakes, 11/9/21

Eleven days ago Barbara Volkle, Steve Moore and I got to see a Violet-banded Skipper in our Progreso Lakes yard for a total of about two seconds.  There it was and there it went.  Well I saw another one today and it stayed for a total of 34 seconds.  That was the elapsed time between my first photo and my last.  And then it was gone.  This Mexican grass skipper is so distinctly marked that it doesn't take long to identify it.

The Tailed Orange didn't stay much longer.

We've had very few Julia's Skippers since the February freeze.

Still several Double-dotted Skippers around.

My bait station hosted a few Tawny Emperors, a couple of South Texas Satyrs and a Red Admiral.

A very fresh Cloudless Sulphur chrysalis. 

44 species on the day was not too bad.  I'm leading butterfly trips for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival over the next few days so maybe we can come up with something interesting.

• Pipevine Swallowtail 1
• Giant Swallowtail 3
• Great Southern White 3
• Orange Sulphur 1
• Southern Dogface 1
• Cloudless Sulphur 6
• Large Orange Sulphur 2
• Tailed Orange 1
• Little Yellow 2
• Gray Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 1
• Ceraunus Blue 1
• American Snout 1
• Gulf Fritillary 1
• Bordered Patch 2
• Vesta Crescent 1
• Phaon Crescent 2
• Painted Lady 1
• Red Admiral 1
• White Peacock 6
• Tawny Emperor 6
• Carolina Satyr 3
• Monarch 3
• Queen 25
• Soldier 6
• White-striped Longtail 3
• Dorantes Longtail 6
• Brown Longtail 12
• Sickle-winged Skipper 8
• White Checkered-Skipper 6
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 6
• Laviana White-Skipper 4
• Julia's Skipper 1
• Clouded Skipper 15
• Double-dotted Skipper 3
• Southern Skipperling 3
• Fiery Skipper 8
• Whirlabout 5
• Sachem 3
• Common Mellana 3
• Eufala Skipper 4
• Ocola Skipper 1
• Violet-banded Skipper 1

Progreso Lakes yard and a Green-backed Ruby-eye, 11/28/17

This morning Linda Cooper brought some butterfly friends over to the house to check out the butterflies in our yard.  The South Texas Satyrs were lifers for some of them.

As was the Orange-barred Sulphur.

I had found this Red-crescent Scrub Hairstreak yesterday for yard butterfly #100.  We saw two today.

After they left (and found Blue-eyed Sailor over at Estero!) I found this Hackberry Emperor on our fruit peel pile for yard butterfly # 101.  There are plenty of hackberries around so maybe we'll see more of them.

I was going back into the house after putting out some bait when I spotted a funny colored pinkish-orange thing on our Betony.  I didn't even check it out.  I just ran straight into the house for my camera cuz the only thing that comes in that color is Curve-winged Metalmark.  Yard butterfly #102.  And it was a nice fat female and there's plenty of the host plant, Caesalpinia, in the neighbor's yard so you do the math.

Well, Linda had told me she was going to help some people look for the Green-backed Ruby-eye that has been seen the past couple of evenings on the Retama Village wall north of Bentsen State park.  So I raced over with hopes of getting some shots of it in the setting sun light.  But it didn't pop out till after sun set and I forgot to bump up my ISO so this is what I wound up with.

But I was still happy to see this rare tropical grass skipper, my 210th species for the Valley.

Angled Leafwings at National Butterfly Center, 2/11/17

Lorna Graham found an Angled Leafwing yesterday afternoon at the National Butterfly Center and no one else got to see it.  The only ones I have ever seen were back in  Dec. 2012.  But not to worry as the butterfly was refound today.

And for good measure I found another one shortly thereafter.  It's amazing how often rare butterflies show up in multiples.

It's been awhile since I've seen a Common Streaky-Skipper at the NBC.

Prior to last week I had only seen three Chestnut Crescents.  Now I've seen four in four days.  With both sexes being seen, I wonder if they will leave any caterpillars behind.

My afternoon started with this Band-celled Sister.

And yet another Double-dotted Skipper.

Celia's Roadside-Skipper are starting to appear again.

The winter form of South Texas Satyr has really tiny occelli.

NABA Sightings won't allow me to copy and past my list for the day so you have to go there now to see it.

https://sightings.naba.org/

Eastern Tailed-Blue at NBC, 5/8/15

A warm, windy day was in the weather forecast so I ran over to the National Butterfly Center to what surprises might be in store.  I got a good one.  After sorting through tons of common butterflies, I found a small pale spotted blue that turned out to be an Eastern Tailed-Blue.  Glassberg's books shows this common butterfly is found north, south, east and west of the RGV but missing from the plains of deep south Texas.  It was certainly one I had not expected but I guess they've been seen down here before.

Another nice butterfly was my first Zilpa Longtail for the year.  It's kind of beat up/

Max told me a Julia Heliconian had been hanging around.  It took a while but I found her.

Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak seems to be everywhere this year.

Here's a nice looking Dusky-blue Groundstreak.  Most of them were down in the ditch behind the bird feeding station.

The South Texas Satyrs I saw a few weeks ago all  had tiny to nonexistent spots.  The three I saw today were back to normal.  Is this seasonal or is another species involved?

I hope I'm right in calling this a Rounded Metalmark.

Here's my longest list of the year, 48 species.

• Black Swallowtail 3
• Giant Swallowtail 2
• Checkered White 15
• Great Southern White 8
• Giant White 1
• Cloudless Sulphur 2
• Large Orange Sulphur 5
• Lyside Sulphur 60
• Little Yellow 8
• Sleepy Orange 1
• Dainty Sulphur 15
• Gray Hairstreak 8
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 20
• Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 8
• Cassius Blue 1
• Ceraunus Blue 3
• Reakirt's Blue 25
• Eastern Tailed-Blue 1
• Rounded Metalmark 1
• American Snout 10
• Julia Heliconian 1
• Bordered Patch 20
• Elada Crescent 2
• Texan Crescent 10
• Vesta Crescent 1
• Phaon Crescent 100
• Pearl Crescent 8
• American Lady 1
• Red Admiral 1
• Empress Leilia 1
• Tawny Emperor 6
• Carolina Satyr 3
• Queen 8
• Zilpa Longtail 1
• Texas Powdered-Skipper 1
• White Checkered-Skipper 25
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper10
• Laviana White-Skipper 6
• Common Sootywing 3
• Julia's Skipper 3
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 6
• Clouded Skipper 8
• Southern Skipperling 8
• Fiery Skipper 2
• Whirlabout 1
• Southern Broken-Dash 1
• Eufala Skipper 8

National Butterfly Center, 12/14/14

Honey and I ran over to the National Butterfly Center this warm, windy, sunny day.  There were plenty of butterflies but nothing good until Jeff Glassberg found a Ruddy Hairstreak.  Unfortunately I didn't get a photo. I also failed to photograph the Malachite, so here's a pair of copulating Soldiers.

And a couple of White Peacocks in love.

This South Texas Satyr (AKA Hermes Satyr, AKA Carolina Satyr) has very small ocelli.

Tropical Leafwings are in short supply this winter, but this is a rally nice one.

I guess this is just a dark Cassius Blue.

Here's our list of 43 species.

• Black Swallowtail 1
• Checkered White 1
• Southern Dogface 4
• Cloudless Sulphur 4
• Large Orange Sulphur 5
• Lyside Sulphur 5
• Tailed Orange 2
• Little Yellow 2
• Silver-banded Hairstreak 1
• Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 5
• Ruddy Hairstreak 1
• Dusky-blue Groundstreak 25
• Cassius Blue 2
• Ceraunus Blue 5
• Red-bordered Pixie 1
• American Snout 3
• Gulf Fritillary 8
• Zebra Heliconian 4
• Bordered Patch 2
• Vesta Crescent 2
• Phaon Crescent 10
• Red Admiral 8
• White Peacock 5
• Malachite 1
• Common Mestra 1
• Tropical Leafwing 2
• Tawny Emperor 25
• Carolina Satyr 1
• Monarch 5
• Queen 40
• Soldier 10
• Brown Longtail 3
• Sickle-winged Skipper 3
• White Checkered-Skipper 20
• Tropical Checkered-Skipper 8
• Laviana White-Skipper 8
• Julia's Skipper 2
• Fawn-spotted Skipper 3
• Clouded Skipper 50
• Southern Skipperling 5
• Fiery Skipper 6
• Whirlabout 1
• Sachem 1
• Eufala Skipper 3